In A Handful of Dust
by markymarquee
Summary: Aaron Hotchner and the rest of the BAU is asked to investigate a series of murders and kidnappings in New Hampshire. They have less than a week to locate the unsub's latest victim, six year old Harry Potter, alive. Pre-Hogwarts, eventual family story. No Slash (currently), WIP
1. Chapter 1: In The Thick of It

_Author's Note_: I've never been one for crossovers, but this little bug bit me after reading a wonderfully written HP/Criminal Minds crossover entitled _Cerberus_ by Cruchysunrises, located on AO3. I highly recommend checking it out, if you have not done so already.

This is a Criminal Minds/Harry Potter crossover, set is some strange AU before Jack is born, but after Rossi joins the team. If you haven't seen Criminal Minds, you should still be able to follow along, as I'm trying to makes sure to introduce all characters with at least some back story, but it will be easier to follow if you have.

As always, I own nothing. I am also sans-beta, so all mistakes are my own. Please read and review. And now...

...on with the story!

In A Handful of Dust

_Chapter 1: In the Thick of It_

There were precious few things in life that Supervisory Special Agent Aaron Hotchner hated more than cases, particularly violent ones, involving children. It might have had to do with the fact that he, himself, had been a victim of abuse when he was young, or because he and his wife Haley were trying to get "in the family way," but regardless of the reason, cases involving children made his skin crawl in a way that no other case, no matter how gruesome, could. Generally, as the supervisor of this particular team, Aaron would personally see to avoiding all cases involving children of any age, however this particular case involved such a strange set of circumstances and appeared to be escalating so quickly that the team's public liaison, Jennifer Jareau, also known as JJ, had insisted they go at once.

Aaron's team was the best team of criminal profilers that the FBI had to offer, and as such, they often found themselves being flown around the country to assist local authorities in apprehending wanted and highly dangerous criminals- from serial killers to kidnappers.

Aaron was the last person on the team to enter the conference room for the case briefing, just in time to see JJ display a picture of the latest victim, a boy of about five years old, whose death appeared to have been caused by disembowlment, on the screen in the front of the room.

Nearly ten years in The FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit, and kid cases never got any easier.

JJ cleared her throat, nervously darting a glance at her supervisor, "Ready, Hotch?"

Aaron nodded, and gestured for her to start.

JJ referred to the file folder in her hand briefly, and then began.

"We will be heading to Concord, NH. About a month and a half ago, a family was found in their home, shot execution style in their beds. George and Lina Marshall, and their 8 year old daughter Kelly. Their son, Hunter, was taken from their home and was found a week later in a field outside of town, having been stabbed repeatedly in the stomach. Two weeks later, Kristoff and Anya Petersson were found in their home. Same M.O., and their son, four year old Victor, was found yesterday. And today, Vernon and Petunia Dursley, and their seven year old son Dudley, were found in their home, just outside of the town itself. Their six year old nephew, Harry, appears to have been taken."

"If our unknown subject, or unsub, follows the same pattern, we have less than a week to find Harry alive."

JJ pressed the next button on the remote, and a picture of the missing child came up on the screen. A small boy, much smaller than his age would suggest, with dark, messy hair and brilliant green eyes, hidden behind dark, plastic rimmed glasses. Aaron made the mental note that the boy did not appear to look anything like the rest of his family, whose bodies also graced the screen. He shivered slightly and mentally steeled himself. This boy will not be victim number eleven.

"Time is of the essence with this case. Wheels up in thirty," said Aaron, after a brief pause. He stared at the carpet for a moment, collected himself, and then, gathering up his file folder, he strolled out of the room.

* * *

><p>The walls of the box are covered with deep scratches. Gouges in the wood, bloody and tinged with desperation. He claws at the ceiling, mere inches from his face, the urge to panic welling up in his chest- terror filling his lungs like a water balloon until he cannot breathe.<p>

_letmeoutletmeoutLETMEOUT_

He screams.

* * *

><p>The flight from Dulles to Nashua was tense. Aaron called Haley, briefly, from the tarmac, to let her know that he'd be gone for the next few days. They spoke for exactly 35 seconds about the case, and then for another 2 minutes about the week's weather. Aaron hung up just as the plane was about to take off. The youngest member of the team, and resident genius Spencer Reid, tried to engage him in a game of chess, but after ten moves and being put in check twice, Aaron gave up and tried to grab a few minutes of sleep before landing.<p>

When the team arrived in the Concord Police Headquarters just a few hours later, the place was in utter chaos. JJ moved in quickly to introduce herself and the members of their team to Police Chief Warren, while Aaron led the rest of their motley crew into the station's conference room. Evidence and photos of the various crime scenes lined the walls, and Reid moved immediately to the formidable stack of forms sitting at one end of the table.

As Reid began to read through the tall pile of paperwork, Aaron asked, "What do we know?"

"Time between kidnappings and murders is getting shorter. And the second boy was kept longer. The first child was held for a week, but Victor was kept alive for about ten days," said Emily Prentiss. Prentiss had joined the team nearly a year ago, and was as blunt and as sharp as a whip. Despite Aaron's misgivings about Prentiss's abilities when she joined the team, she had proven herself a valuable asset to the BAU fairly quickly.

"He's definitely got a type," added Derek Morgan. Morgan, often viewed as the team's muscle and "lady killer," per JJ's astute observation, had a protective streak a mile wide. Children's cases arguably hit him as hard as they hit Aaron."Boys are between four and eight, and have dark hair. We're looking at a preferential offender."

"No signs of sexual abuse, though," chimed in David Rossi, the senior member of their team. Rossi had worked in the BAU long before Aaron joined, and had retired, briefly, to become a writer. He had rejoined the team not long after Prentiss, and the BAU was greatly benefitting from his long career and expertise. Rossi continued, "Both boys were malnourished and showed signs of physical torture, but no indications of molestation. The medical examiner report says that both boys were beaten, and, strangely, had splinters of wood under their finger nails."

"Probably from where ever they're being kept," added Prentiss.

"Hey, guys? Interesting note, here," Spencer spoke quickly, without glancing up from the file that he was perusing, "All three families only recently immigrated to the country. It says here that the Marshalls moved from Australia about 6 months ago, and the Peterssens came from Romania in March."

"What about the Dursley's?" asked Aaron, his interest piqued.

"They moved here from Surrey, England, about three weeks ago. Hadn't even had the opportunity to register their son and nephew in school."

"That's got to be the connection between the victims. Prentiss, you and Morgan go to the last body dump site and see if you can find anything. Rossi, you and I will go to the Dursley home and see if we can learn a bit more about our victims. Reid, you and JJ try and see what you can discover about our victims. Remember, that boy has been missing for 16 hours now. The longer we take, the less likely it is for us to find a Harry alive."

* * *

><p>The water is cold, and it just keeps coming and coming and coming- filling up the little box until he is forced the press his face to the slats of the lid to find air. He is going to die here, he knows, and no one is going to miss him.<p>

_worthlessFREAKjustlikeyourfather_

Suddenly the water shuts off and begins to drain out the bottom and he can rest again, able to breathe easy.

"Please.." He whimpers, "Please let me out..."

There is laughter above him, cold and shrill, and he cannot tell if he hears the voice outside of his prison, or in his own skull.


	2. Chapter 2: Spotless

A/N: Ok, look, time lines are tricky. In order to make this work the way I want (and to fit roughly into the time frame of the BAU), I had to bump up Harry's birthdate by twenty years (sorry!). That puts his birthday on July 31st, 2000, Voldemort's downfall in October of 2001, and places this story in November of 2006. Like I said in the first chapter, weird AU.

Whew.

Thank you to all who reviewed- It absolutely made my holidays. I'm a teacher, and therefore am on break- I'm going to try and bang out a few more chapters before the start of the new year, and then will (hopefully!) be updating on Fridays.

As always, I do not own either Criminal Minds or Harry Potter- I just like to play with the characters. As I am sans-beta, all mistakes are my own.

* * *

><p><span>In a Handful of Dust<span>

_Chapter 2: Spotless_

Child cases are taxing, both physically and mentally. It's too easy to get emotionally invested, pathetically simple to lose your mind of the smallest details. To cope, Reid liked to reduce those cases to their most basic and impartial parts:

Numbers.

Male, 46 chromosomes, including one y. 6 years old. Alive for roughly 1,800 hours. Birthday, July 31st. Lived in the United States for 23 days.

Eighteen hours since the team's arrival, thirty six hours since abduction. 1 in 10,000 abductions are stranger abductions. 74% of those children are murdered within three hours of abduction. By the 72 hour mark, survival chances are only a fraction of a percent.

Current chances to be located alive: roughly 17%.

Sometimes, numbers are not as comforting or impartial as Reid hoped they would be.

* * *

><p>The light is bright and painful, and sears into his aching skull. Distracted, he has no time to react as he is hauled up by his left elbow.<p>

The fresh air is cold and bitter, and tastes of snow. He falls when his arm is released, and the ground tastes of dirt.

"Move," the man hisses.

He cannot see- his glasses are long gone. His clothes are still damp, and shivers from cold and terror. He stands, but does not know where to _move_ to.

"I said, _move!_"

Pain explodes across his back, and stars wink behind his eyes.

Harry bites his lip, and tries not to cry.

* * *

><p>"It says here that Harry came to live with his Aunt and Uncle on November 1st, 2001. He was a little over a year old," Reid remarked aloud as he reviewed the case file. "CPS states here that the Dursleys were very reluctant to become his caretakers, citing a strained relationship between Petunia Dursley and her sister, Lily Potter."<p>

"Why would they take him in then? Why not let the child become a ward of the state?" asked JJ, as she flipped through another one of the family files.

"It looks like they might have been coerced, or at least guilted into taking him. Petunia's parents passed away in the mid 90's, and it doesn't…look like there was any family left on the father's side. Now that's odd," Reid frowned.

"What's odd?" asked JJ, closing the file to look up at the profiler.

"Well, there's almost no information in here about Harry's father at all. He's listed here as James Potter, but there's no occupation or schooling info. It says his parents are deceased, but doesn't say when or provide any information about him at all. There's a bit more information on Harry's mom, but most of it appears to have been given to CPS by Petunia. And there's a really strange comment here that Petunia told to CPS when they took guardianship of Harry."

"Which was…?"

"'We're only going to take him in because we have to, because we're the only family he has left. But if he turns out to be as strange and abnormal as his parents, we're turning him over to the state. His parent's freakishness got them killed, and we'll have none of that in our home.'"

"That's bizarre," JJ stood up and walked over to look at the file over Reid's shoulder. "Does it say how the Potters died?"

"…No. No, now that you mention it, it doesn't say anything at all about Harry's parents. We should call Garcia."

* * *

><p>Aaron's first impression of the Dursley home was that, prior to the murders, it must have been immaculate.<p>

The home was a simple, three bedroom cottage just outside of the Concord city limits. The front door opened into a large living room that appeared to be lifted straight out of a Better Homes and Garden's magazine. The couches, a light blue with white pinstripes, circled around a matching area rug and faced a large, flat screen TV, mounted on the far wall. There was a fireplace that dominated the wall directly across from the front door, and the mantle was covered in pictures and various nick-knacks. Every picture one the wall was straight, every trinket placed just so, and not a speck of dust to be seen on any surface. Rossi took one look around the room and winced, before suggesting that he'd take the upstairs.

Aaron moved through the room with ease, stopping in front of the fireplace. There were dozens of photos of a young, very large, blond boy, in all stages of life. A large family photo dominated the mantle: the blond boy, about 6 years old, with his parents. After a moment, Aaron realized that there were no photos of the missing child- not one photo of Harry Potter, the Dursely's nephew. Frowning at the realization, Aaron flipped open his phone and dialed Garcia.

"Ready and willing to serve, my liege!" the overly peppy voice of the BAU's resident tech analyst warbled through the phone.

"Garcia, when did Harry come to live with his Aunt and Uncle?" Aaron asked, continuing to study the pictures.

"You know, our missing boy is one heck of an enigma. Or, at least his family is. Harry came to live with the Durselys in '01, just after his parents died."

"'01? He would have been a little over a year old then. How did his parents die?"

"That's where this poor kid's file gets all levels of crazy. It doesn't say. In fact, his dad has, like, no record of existence at all- no birth certificate, no death certificate, no marriage license, nada. His mom only existed until she was 11. We've got school records for her until that point, but after that…"

"She drops of the face of the earth," Aaron concluded.

"You've hit the nail on the head with that one," Garcia quipped cheerfully.

"Ok, Garcia, do me a favor, and see if you can find anyone, and I do mean _anyone_ who might have known the Potter's or Lily and Petunia…?"

"Evans, sir."

"Evans as kids. Anything we might be able to find out about this. I'm starting to get the feeling that victimology is going to be the key to finding this boy."

"You've got it, your royal highness. Garcia, over and out!"

Just as Aaron closed his phone, he heard Rossi call from upstairs, "Hey, Hotch!"

Aaron walked up the stairs to find Rossi standing in the hallway, "Find anything?"

"Yeah," Rossi answered, "Something kind of bizarre." He gestured to the doors leading to the bedrooms.

"So, there are three bedrooms on this floor. There's the parent's room on the right, a kid's room on the left, and then a playroom further down the hall. But the kid's room, where the Dursely boy was shot? It only had one bed."

Aaron blinked, "Maybe there's another bedroom downstairs?"

"That's what I thought, too," answered Rossi. "But then, I opened this closet, and…"

Rossi pushed open the door.

It was a normal linen closet. Three shelves, about three feet off the ground, contained towels and extra sheets. But, under the shelves, a small nest of tattered blankets and pillows took up the floor. A few broken army men, a couple of broken crayons, and a teddy bear that was missing both an eye and an arm, were nestled in the sheets. The word's "Hary's Roome" were scrawled on the back wall of the closet.

Aaron's mouth dropped open and he could feel the blood drain from his face. After a moment of stunned silence, he turned to Rossi and asked:

"Who _is_ this kid?"

* * *

><p>When he wakes, the world around him is dark. His back aches, and he is hungry. When he looks up, he can make out the blurry slats of his prison.<p>

He is back under ground.

He tries to call up to his captor, but his voice, shredded from screaming, only squeaks.

There is laughter from above, before a voice says, "Do you want to know why?"

Harry shivers. It is getting colder outside. The voice continues, high pitched and thread.

"_Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live."_

* * *

><p>AN: Ahh, a motive. As always, please R&R!


End file.
